


Nothing is Whole, Nothing is Broken

by BigDykeEnergy



Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Keyblade Wielder Naminé (Kingdom Hearts), Naminé-centric (Kingdom Hearts), chosen family, lessons with Master Aqua, seasalt family - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-03
Updated: 2021-01-03
Packaged: 2021-03-10 19:54:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28242717
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BigDykeEnergy/pseuds/BigDykeEnergy
Summary: In the dark, Naminé crept down to the kitchen and sat with her back against the cabinets, her ankles tucked neatly underneath her.A strong heart,she thought, clenching a fist against her chest.She held a hand outstretched, staring at the fingers fanned in front of her face.No matter how hard she willed it, nothing ever came to be.---Naminé's friends offer words of wisdom (or...maybe wisdom-adjacent) as she searches for a keyblade of her own.
Comments: 15
Kudos: 42
Collections: Kingdom Heals, Queer Certified Good Fic





	Nothing is Whole, Nothing is Broken

Naminé tugged her pencil down from behind her ear, shifting her sketchpad in her lap.

Her friends were incredible to watch. Roxas moved like lightning, and Xion had a cutting precision in every strike that made her impossible to outpace. Poor Lea looked like he was trying to fight a swarm of invisible bees. They moved so fast, she could barely capture more than shape and momentum in her gestures, but that was what she liked about sketching while the three of them sparred. 

She caught a sharp line of motion as Lea dodged past a spear of ice. 

"Come on, I'm new!" he complained, then ducked in a flail of arms when Roxas blasted a pillar of white light past his head.

"Then you better learn fast!" Roxas shouted.

Naminé captured a series of breathless gestures in quick succession: a streak of forward motion as Xion tackled him from behind; a sprawl of limbs as he tumbled over with a shout; the curve of Xion's spine as she planted herself on the small of his back and crossed her legs.

"Surrender," Xion said.

Lea muttered into the dirt, and Roxas dismissed his keyblade and came over to plop down at Xion's side.

"I surrender," Lea wheezed.

They climbed off, but Lea stayed limp on the ground. He turned his cheek against the dusty street to stare hopelessly toward the house. "Can't a guy get a little sympathy?"

"You held your own," Naminé offered generously. 

Isa didn't even look up from the book he had flattened on the patio table. "Loser," he said.

Lea dragged himself upright and scooted over to lean into the brick at Naminé’s side. "I hope you got some good stuff out of that." 

She flipped through her last few pages. One figure was particularly striking: a rare moment when Lea managed to parry, Flame Liberator braced out in front of him. She traced absently over the silhouette, trying to recall the detail in the hilt. 

"Can I see your keyblade?" she asked.

"Sure," he said. "Not like it's doing much for me, anyway."

There was a flash of heat at her side as he summoned it, and he passed her the handle. 

Naminé hefted it in her hand.There was a strange kind of resonance in her chest, like a tuning fork struck against wood. 

She forgot her sketch.

"Lea," she asked, "how did you know you could wield a keyblade?"

He shrugged. "Dunno. I wanted to help, and Master Yen Sid was willing to teach."

Naminé looked up, where Roxas and Xion were fighting for a towel. Roxas' somebody was a wielder…

She looked back down at Lea's keyblade, watching the fire lick over the blade. Her somebody was a wielder, too.

Then it vanished in a shower of sparks, leaving Naminé blinking at her open palm.

"Oops," Lea said. "Sorry. I forgot it did that."

That night, after Xion had fallen asleep, Naminé pulled her gummiphone under the shroud of her blanket and curled herself around it, pulling her knees up to her chest to cup it like a prayer.

She struck out the start of a message three times before she finally found the words.

_Kairi, how do you summon a keyblade?_

Kairi’s response came so quickly that Naminé almost lost her grip at the vibration.

_it comes from the heart! so it’s sort of like willpower. are you going to try??_

_I don’t know. You have to be chosen, don’t you?_

_the keyblade responds to a strong heart._ _w_ _hile i was carrying yours, i could feel how strong it was. i know you can do it!!!_

Naminé blinked in the light of her gummiphone, drawing it in towards her swelling heart. _Thank you, Kairi. You should go to sleep :)_

_while you need me? never!! <3 _

In the dark, Naminé crept down to the kitchen and sat with her back against the cabinets, her ankles tucked neatly underneath her. 

_A strong heart,_ she thought, clenching a fist against her chest. 

She held a hand outstretched, staring at the fingers fanned in front of her face.

No matter how hard she willed it, nothing ever came to be.

* * *

Naminé kept quietly at her new task for nearly a week. In private moments, when her friends went out to the market or the park or the tourney, she would tuck herself away somewhere and poke at her heart with one hand reaching for something she didn’t understand.

The longer she worked at, the sillier she felt. It was true that Roxas could wield a keyblade, but his heart was solid gold. He would have been worthy even if he had been born a random somebody—Xion, too. Her friends were the worthiest people she knew.

Naminé wasn’t strong; she wasn’t brave. She was powerful—so much so that she sometimes felt like it would crush her—but that power was tainted. What right did she have to call on the keyblade?

Eventually, the frustration began to show. She slept less and spoke less, and one night while they were shelling peas over the kitchen table, Xion finally asked. 

"You could have told us, Naminé," she said. "Maybe we can help."

"Yeah," said Roxas. "We've got a thing or two figured out. We could work at it together."

"You're not Masters just because you can beat me in two-on-one," Lea interjected, peeling the dough off his fingers. He turned from the counter where Isa was chopping vegetables to lean against it. "You do have us, though."

Three pairs of bright eyes turned toward her, and Naminé felt her face go hot. She looked at the hollow shell in her hands. "We could try," she said.

Lea opened his mouth, but Isa smacked him with a towel when he strayed into vegetable-chopping space. He settled himself in the chair at Roxas' side instead.

"Master Yen Sid made me sit around for hours when I first started. I had to get up miserably early to meditate before I could eat." He pulled a face. "I wouldn't subject you to that."

"If you can't summon it alone, maybe we can draw it out," Roxas said.

"My keyblade tends to manifest when I'm under stress," Xion said, "or when I need to protect someone."

“What if we threw things at you?” Roxas mused, cocking his head against his hand. “Like, to see if you could be startled into summoning it?”

Naminé looked helplessly at Xion, but Xion looked like she was thinking about it a little too hard.

Lea was _definitely_ thinking about it too hard. “Yeah,” he said, “that could work…”

Isa leaned back from the counter, halting his chopping for the first time. “You’re not throwing anything at anyone," he said. “I don’t want our things or our friends broken.”

Naminé felt a little faint. “Thank you,” she said.

"Buzzkill," Lea said. “All right, we don’t have to throw things. What if we tried sparring but like, with a blindfold—"

“You three are hopeless,” Isa muttered.

“Well, what do you suggest, then?” Lea said, crossing his arms petulantly over his chest.

Isa let out a weary sigh, and he set the knife on the cutting board. He tugged his gummiphone from his pocket. 

“We call an actual expert.”

* * *

“Let's start from the beginning,” Aqua said. “Can you tell me what you know about wielding a keyblade?”

Naminé laced her hands in her lap. She knocked her heels against the leg of the bench, looking nervously out at the tourney stage.

"I know they're very powerful," she said. "And I know the keyblade chooses its wielder."

Aqua turned folded one knee over the over on the lip of the stage. "Good," she said. "The keyblade does choose its wielder. Of course, there's more to the relationship than that."

Naminé nodded uncertainly. "How do you...know if you're chosen?"

That seemed to give her pause. "You don't," she said. "Not at first. If you were bequeathed, then the connection exists. Whether it will come to manifest depends on whether the bequeathed has the makings of a wielder."

Naminé stopped kicking. A fresh peal of embarrassment stirred in her stomach. "What if they don't?"

Aqua watched her for a moment, her eyes soft and searching. She stood, straightening the sash at her waist, and stepped onto the tourney stage.

"Come with me," she said.

Naminé got to her feet, her limbs rigid and tight. Aqua aligned herself at one of the platform corners. 

Since it seemed like the right thing to do, Naminé stood opposite her. She tugged nervously at the hem of her dress.

Even at rest, Aqua held herself gracefully. Her shoulders were relaxed, her feet set firmly beneath her; in the faint breeze, the train at her hip swayed, and she was immovable in its center.

"Every one of us has a source of inner strength," she said. "Keyblades are a manifestation of that strength, of our bonds with our friends and with ourselves. Many wielders return to a root belief - a focal point for their practice.”

Aqua held a hand in front of her, the way Naminé had seen her friends do countless times.

“My root belief is duty,” Aqua said. “Often, I find I am the only person equipped for a task. There’s no room for doubt when I’m called to the responsibilities of a Master. If I’m needed, I will rise to the occasion.”

A burst of light manifested in Aqua’a outstretched palm. When it faded, she held the sleek, architectural form of her keyblade. Rooted behind its matte silver and deep, stormy blues, she looked like she had been born with it in her hand.

"Tell me," Aqua said, "why do you want to wield a keyblade?"

The awe in Naminé's chest kindled into resolve. "I want to protect my friends."

Aqua smiled, and there was deep, glowing warmth in it. "A noble goal," she said.

She flipped the keyblade and offered Naminé the hilt. Naminé took it as delicately as if it were glass.

“What do you feel?” Aqua asked.

“The metal is cool…” Naminé answered, adjusting her loose grip. “Lea’s was warm.”

“Each keyblade has its own soul,” Aqua said. “Rainfell’s nature is somewhat more… _restrained_ than your friend’s. What else?”

Naminé closed her eyes. “It feels…close,” she said, struggling to articulate the strange, invasive feeling of being judged by something she could hold in her hand.

“Good,” Aqua said, her tone colored by surprise. “Not everyone is able to sense that right away.”

Naminé kept her eyes shut, and she could feel Rainfell reaching, trying to make contact with something in her; trying to pry open a door that ran deep into the past.

She dropped the hilt with a start, her eyes snapping open. As it hit the stone, Rainfell dematerialized into glittering light.

“Naminé?” Aqua said, and Naminé turned wide eyes to her face when Aqua’s hand fell gently to her shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s all right,” Aqua said. “It’s sturdy. You’re very attuned to your inner landscape - that’s good. That sensitivity will help you find your own path.”

She didn’t feel attuned; she felt sick to her stomach. She nodded anyway.

"Keep working at it," Aqua said. "Many wielders train for months before they can summon on command. If you decide—well," she straightened, and for the first time she looked almost shy. "I've never taken an apprentice, but if you decide to follow the path of a Master, you're always welcome at the Land of Departure."

Naminé stared at her, mouth agape. "Me?" she said.

"Yes," Aqua said, and her air of confidence returned. "I believe you have the makings...but I've given you more than enough to think about for one day. In the meantime, see what you can learn from your friends. I’m sure their wisdom will help you find your way." Her expression darkened, her smile growing thin. “And don’t let Lea throw anything at you.”

Her head was spinning after that, but her resolve had hardened.

_I want to protect my friends._

* * *

When she asked Lea about his root belief, he laughed.

“Aqua makes this stuff too complicated," he said, passing her a sea-salt ice cream. "I can’t get so in my head about it. It’s instinct, right? It’s just…” He extended an arm, staring at his outstretched fingers. He flexed his wrist, and his keyblade seared out from the curve of his palm until it burst into tongues of fire, throwing a spray of embers into the air.

“Hah!” he said, shooting her a huge, toothy grin as his ice cream started to run down his arm. “See? It’s all there. All it needs is a spark.”

* * *

Roxas gave the question a little more consideration. He tucked his longboard under his arm as they walked, kicking a stone down the street ahead.

"I never really thought about it," he said. "I guess...I'm kind of angry. But not like I used to be. I think the anger is important now. It reminds me that I deserve to be here."

They passed under the arch of a bridge and into the plaza, and Roxas passed Naminé his longboard.

"Now do you wanna learn to shred, or not?"

* * *

Late that night, when she and Xion were settling in for bed, Naminé shuffled over and clicked her bedside lamp back on.

"Hey, Xion?" she whispered.

Xion's eyes cracked open. "Mm?"

"Where does your keyblade come from?"

Xion blinked at her, and she shuffled her hands in the sleeves of her nightshirt.

“Nowhere,” she said.

Naminé brushed her hair back behind her ear. “I don’t know if I can use that,” she admitted.

Xion sat up, pulling her pillow into her lap.

“It...comes from nothing,” she said, “like I do. I was never meant to exist. I wasn't owed a place in this world. So…existing, it’s an act of will." She looked down, her fingers twisting and untwisting in her pillowcase. "My keyblade is the same. I choose to be. I choose for it to be, too.”

"Oh," Naminé said softly. 

It hit her again how much her friends had endured because of her. How much she owed to them. How much she admired them. 

"Xion,” she said, “I don't know if my heart will ever be that strong."

Xion reached for her hands, and she gave them a soft squeeze. "There isn't just one way of being strong," she said. “Hearts can be messy, and strange...they can be hurt, and they can be broken. Those scars are pieces of the whole, too.”

Naminé gathered up that thought as if she were bundling wildflowers.

“Thank you,” she said, and Xion smiled.

"Get some rest," she said. "We'll try again tomorrow."

* * *

Even with her friends going easy on her, Naminé's arms were shaking from exertion. Her bangs stuck to the sheen of sweat on her brow, and she swept them hurriedly back, blinking a droplet from her eyelashes.

She brandished her training baton, steeling her back foot against the brick street. Roxas advanced on her again in three rapid steps, dual keyblades flashing at his sides, and she parried two blows in quick succession and caught the intersection of his blades as he brought them down over her chest.

He let up almost immediately, and she wobbled as the force against her baton disappeared. He fell back, his expression sheepish.

"It isn't working," she said breathlessly. "You don't have to hold back."

Roxas exchanged a look with Xion, who was sitting on the curbside with her keyblade laid across her lap.

"I'm not going to fight you like I mean it," he said. "You're just starting."

Naminé lowered her baton, and releasing the tension in her arms made the burn all the more noticeable. "I need to learn." 

Roxas looked at her skeptically, then deflated. He glanced past her, where Lea was leaning into the side of the house.

Lea sighed. "Yeah, all right," he said, and he straightened up and positioned himself opposite her, flexing his wrists experimentally. His keyblade flickered to life.

"En garde," he said, brandishing it in her direction.

Naminé raised her baton again, but she caught her foot when she tried to adjust for the weight, and had to stumble to stay upright.

Lea dismissed his keyblade instantly. He took a step toward her, a hand already half-extended.

She grounded herself, her brow knitting in frustration. "I'm fine," she mumbled. "I can keep going."

"Maybe you should take a break," Lea started. "You've been at this non-stop. You don't need to push yourself so hard."

"I want to keep going," she insisted, tightening her grip on the wooden handle of her baton. Her heart still felt distant and impenetrable in her chest. "I'm getting there. I _know_ I'm getting there."

"Okay." Lea said it like he was trying to soothe a cornered animal. "But you don't have to get it today, right?"

Naminé felt her eyes welling with frustrated tears, and she tried to blink them back. "I do!" she choked. "I need to do this! I want to be able to protect you. I want to make up for—for everything, and what's the _point_ of this power if all it does is hurt people?"

"Protect—" Lea interrupted. "Woah, hold on. _Make up_ for everything?"

She felt the tears start to spill over, and she was paralyzed by humiliation as three of the strongest people she knew watched her unravel like a little girl.

Lea was the first to step forward, his expression dumbfounded, and he knelt at her side. "Naminé, do you really blame yourself for everything that happened with the org?" His hands tightened around her arms, and he met her blurry eyes. "None of that was your fault! Jesus, if it's on anyone, it's on _me."_

He pulled her into a tight hug, and she sniffled helplessly into his sweatshirt. Roxas and Xion crowded in around her.

"Roxas," she managed, "and you, Xion, you—you both gave up _everything_ for my mistakes, and I couldn't even bring you back, I couldn't—"

Roxas' arms locked around her shoulders. "We all did what we had to," he said.

"We're here now," Xion said, pressing her forehead into Naminé's temple. "We're all here now."

* * *

She was surrounded by flat, familiar walls. 

The long, empty table where she spent countless days was gone. The white room was pristine, its blank-paper walls absent of her patchwork of stolen moments. When she looked behind her, the door was absent, too.

On the far side of the white room was a single window, overlooking the house gardens and the rolling forest beyond. She knew there couldn’t be breeze in a sealed room, but the curtain drifted anyway.

Naminé took a slow step toward the window. The sun, as always, was going down over the treetops; but this time, the cloud-scattered sky bled indigo as it disappeared beyond them. 

For the first time, the Twilight Town horizon faded into night. The view outside was swallowed by pitch, and she could make out the silhouette of an unfamiliar figure in the darkened glass.

She was tall and uncompromising in an intricate set of pearl-white armor. The snowy trail of a cape drifted out behind, the rope of her golden hair twisted over her shoulder to wind along her breastplate like a vine.

Naminé stared at her alien reflection, and her reflection stared back. The stranger raised a steady arm, and Naminé felt an irresistible, magnetic pull moving her own in turn.

There was a burst of light in the stranger's hand. The shape that formed was indistinguishable, its details smeared like wet paint. Naminé's outstretched fingers remained empty.

The stranger drew back her arm, and the window shattered in a cascade of glass and sky-blue daylight. 

Naminé startled back, and woke. 

Her legs were tangled hopelessly in her sheets, her heart hammering. Xion was already out of bed. 

There was a storm of fear in her chest, and in its eye was something strange—something new.

* * *

The sudden rumble of engines set the dishes rattling on the countertops while they were washing up from breakfast. Naminé hurried to the front step to watch as the Gummi Ship descended to the street, kicking up a cloud of dust and a blast of wind.

Sora climbed out while the engines were still spinning and dashed to her with his arms wide. She squeaked in surprise when he lifted her clear off the ground.

"It's great to see you!" he said, and she shuffled her hair back into place sheepishly when he set her down.

Riku hung from the open hatch of the ship, his hand planted casually at his hip. “We heard you could use a day off,” he said.

Naminé twisted to look back over her shoulder, where here friends were crowding at the doorway. 

"Xion’s idea," Lea said with a grin, and Xion elbowed him in the side.

Sora tugged her in the direction of the ship. "Come on," he said, "Kairi's waiting for us!"

She had been to the Destiny Islands before, but it was still strange to see the landscape she had sketched a thousand times grow from a playset into a paradise from the window of the Gummi Ship. 

Kairi was, as promised, waiting for them, and she fell on Naminé the moment her feet touched the sand. She wasted no time in pulling Naminé through every sketch that had ever adorned her empty walls, landmark for landmark.

Riku took her along the sparse sand trail up the cliffside to the crest of the mountain, and the beach below looked like a streak of seafoam between the deep blue ocean and lively green brush. When they made it back down, Sora collapsed into the sand and sprawled out under the sky. Naminé had never napped before, but Sora set an impressive example, and the two of them lost hours dozing between warm sand and sunshine. 

In the afternoon, Naminé waded into the clear pool below the cliffside when she spotted a smooth shell, and Kairi held a leaf under the waterfall and blasted her with chilly water. She squealed, and protested, and dragged Kairi in after her, and for a second it felt like she had always been free.

"Not bad for a day off, huh?" Sora asked her that evening as they were strolling through the surf.

"I can't imagine a better one," she told him honestly. 

Riku sprinted past, trying to keep pace with the stone Kairi had skipped over the surf as it went streaking down the beach, and Naminé fought down a laugh.

"Sora," she asked, "If we really had been friends growing up, do you think it would have been like this?"

Sora cocked his head at her, then broke into a grin. "Sure, maybe," he said. "But we're friends now, aren't we?"

She beamed at him. "We are."

Riku slowed, and he fell into step at Sora's other side. Naminé beamed at him, too. "Thank you both for today. It meant a lot to me."

Sora and Riku exchanged a quick glance, and they slowed to a stop.

"Actually," Riku said, looking back over his shoulder, "we have one more thing."

Naminé watched him quizzically, then turned to face behind.

Kairi was standing with her feet firmly planted in the sand, her face a stoic mask, her hands tucked behind her back.

"Kneel," she said.

Naminé blinked, looking between Sora and Riku. Riku's chin was ducked, his arms crossed nonchalantly; Sora didn't even try to hide his grin.

She turned back to Kairi, still patiently rooted in place. 

Naminé knelt.

At Kairi's side was a burst of brilliant light, and the flowering curves of Destiny's Embrace blossomed in her hand. She held it over Naminé’s head for one lingering moment, then turned it between her hands and held it out to her, hilt-first.

"In your hand, take this key," Kairi said.

Naminé took it. It fluttered like a caught butterfly in her chest.

"So long as you have the makings, then through this simple act of taking, its wielder you shall one day be."

Kairi looked Naminé in the eye. The ocean breeze scattered her hair over the top of her head, a crown of chaos. "Is your heart strong?" she said.

Speechless, Naminé nodded.

Kairi's eyes ignited. "Is your heart strong?" she repeated, more firmly this time. 

"Yes," Naminé answered quickly. “My heart is strong."

"Rise," Kairi said.

She rose, a cascade of sand crumbling from her weakened knees. When she reached Kairi's eye level, her stoic and serious face vanished, and her grin was wide enough that her eyes nearly disappeared beneath her freckled cheeks.

She leapt forward with a laugh and wrapped her arms around Naminé’s neck, and Naminé held on to her.

"What do you think?" Kairi asked her warmly. "Did it help? Do you feel brave?"

Naminé’s eyes brimmed with overwhelmed tears, and she hid her face in Kairi's shoulder and nodded. "It helped," she said weakly. 

Kairi released her, and Naminé hurriedly swiped the heel of her palm over a wet cheek.

Sora and Riku appeared beside her, and Sora summoned his keyblade in a familiar flash. He held it up to the distant sunset. After a moment, Riku followed suit. 

Kairi threaded her arm through the loop of Naminé's elbow. She held Destiny's Embrace out towards the line of the horizon.

All three of them turned to look at her.

Naminé stared, her heart shuddering like a turning engine. 

She held her hand out in front of her chest, her spread fingers splitting the vibrant reds of the setting sun. Blooming in her palm, slow as honey, was the vibrant shimmer she had been fighting for. The light began to take shape, begin to show a silhouette, and a brilliant flash radiated out.

Her keyblade was intricately woven, white ironwork accented in gold and interspersed with swirling panes of sky-blue stained glass. It was warm and charged in her hand, like it had a heartbeat of its own. Maybe it was her heartbeat.

She could feel its name, ringing through the hilt and into her bones: _Fate's Design._

Naminé looked out at the horizon, at the ripple of power vibrating through the air.

Her power. Her keyblade. 

Her fate to choose.

**Author's Note:**

> my piece for the @khealszine ! check out the zine twitter to see more of the amazing works created for this project 🥺💕as always, u can find me on twitter & tumblr @rikurespecter if u like. 
> 
> if u enjoyed this fic, consider leaving kudos or a comment to let me know! <3


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